With lack of Diablo Immortal spotlight at BlizzCon 2019, and through observation, I think we can now discard what NetEase said back on February 29, 2019 about their side of development been wrapped up.
BlizzCon 2019 showed that the developers are polishing the game in-house to meet their quality standards. While Diablo Immortal did not get a spotlight at BlizzCon 2019 with its own panel, there was activity in the form of a Diablo Immortal press kit and a new gameplay video featuring the Demon Hunter.
So when exactly is Diablo Immortal going to ship? Blizzard Entertainment hasn’t set a date for release date, nor for beta testing at the moment of this posting.
However, I think it is safe to gauge at this moment based on some trends.
Diablo Immortal was unveiled at BlizzCon 2018 with three playable Classes: Barbarian, Wizard, and Monk. The website was silent for a full year until BlizzCon 2019 when the Demon Hunter’s abilities were updated. However, for a full year of no news and showcasing only the Demon Hunter instead of two Classes or the remaining three… that’s telling upon itself. Reveals are now been gated as “one Class per event” — and before BlizzCon 2019 there were three remaining classes’ abilities not yet featured: the Demon Hunter, Crusader, and Necromancer.
So if we use BlizzCon 2019 as a gauge to measure when the game is going to be released, I might dare to say that we might hear about the next Class at PAX East on February 27; or at GamesCom on August 25. Then final Class’ abilities might be revealed at BlizzCon 2020, then.
Or PAX East and GamesCom as the reveals with beta starting shortly after August 25 with a release date near October-November range. That would leave BlizzCon 2020 to focus on post-launch content.
So I am using my sham magic ball to predict the game might release a short time before or after BlizzCon 2020.
At the moment, and this is concerning, the Diablo Immortal beta registration Android app is only accessible to those with Android 8 (Oreo) or above. I can tell because I have two Android devices: One runs Android 5 and the tablet runs Android 7. My Android PC emulator runs with a Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus profile with Android 8. That’s the only one that can see the Diablo Immmortal registration app in the Google Play.
Concerning because as of August 2019, the latest Android version available is Android 9 (Pie) — which leaves a lot of phones out there in the dark unable to register. To me that says that Blizzard has not yet readied to support older phones. I assume that when beta testing is nearing we might see older versions of Android become able to load the Diablo Immortal registration app in the Google Play store. At least, I hope.
In the meantime, if you don’t own an Android phone or tablet, I suggest checking out my recent article about installing an Android PC emulator (which also works in Mac computers). You can register to participate in the Diablo Immortal beta through your PC emulator which thankfully emulates a Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus phone at 1080HD.